Nielson Broadcasting is best known as the company that rates the popularity of television programs. In addition to T.V., the company is also diversified in several music entertainment properties, and is the owner of Billboard magazine, as well as SoundScan.

SoundScan is an online service that tracks the sale of music and video releases. Any music product that carries a barcode is eligible to be tracked by SoundScan, if the retailer elects to report their sales to SoundScan. Although this is no longer the case, Newbury Comics elected NOT to report their sales to SoundScan for years as they thought that their competitors could use the information and negatively affect their own sales. Almost all......

SOUNDSCANIS IMPORTANT HERE IS WHY.....

COPYRIGHT YOUR MUSIC OR LOSE IT.....

ASCAP & BMIREGISTER TO PREPARE FOR ROYALTIES

If you’ve ever read the liner notes of an album (especially back in olden times when CDs were still prevalent), you probably noticed either “(ASCAP)” or “(BMI)” next to each music publisher’s name. If you’ve ever wondered what those jumble of letters means, then this article is for you. What is the “right of performance”?

When you create a musical composition, copyright law grants you certain rights (see my “Copyright & The Music Industry” article for a broader discussion) and one of those rights is the right to perform your work publicly. Now, this right doesn’t only refer to when an artist performs a song live at a club. ....

When you submit a song for copyright you’re simply proving the date of submission of your work. The fine folks of the copyright office don’t sit around listening to every submission to see if they’ve heard it before. That would be an impossible task. When you write or record your song, technically, you’ve created it — and thus you own the copyright to it. By submitting a song to the copyright office, you’re protecting your music simply by acknowledging the date of its creation.

It’s also important to note that certain aspects of your song are not protected even if you’ve registered the copyright. These include: